


power is my love when my love reaches to me

by zanthetran



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Friends With Benefits, Porn with Feelings, covers all of season 12 and keep with canon events mostly, they decide the best way to be close after yaz almost dies is to be IN each other, wow this season really put them through it huh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:26:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24556153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zanthetran/pseuds/zanthetran
Summary: prompt: ‘are you dating or are you just friends who have sex and see each other five times a week?’The answer is both.orThe times in between, where love grows with reckless abandon.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 5
Kudos: 61





	power is my love when my love reaches to me

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: do I have the ability to write thasmin that isn’t sad and terrible like the show? yes. Am I going to use that ability? Absolutely not. Also hm maybe there’s a Reason I can only write the s12 ending with someone apologizing to 13 for how shitty her situation is. chibs listen to me give 13 a HUG next season PLEASE for the love of GOD
> 
> song this was written to: bout you by xuitcasecity

It starts when they get back from Australia. After the Kasaavin dimension and Yaz thinking she died and the plane and being a _wanted criminal_ and after the Doctor gives them a half-assed answer about who she really is (giving names of places and people is not the same as talking about who you are).

They do it once. Frantic hands run over exposed skin, pushing up shirts and pulling suspenders down. The Doctor runs her hands over Yaz’s body, touching every inch she can reach like she might die if she doesn’t. She places open mouthed kisses on Yaz’s neck as the pulse thrums underneath her lips. It’s quick when Yaz comes, and even quicker when the Doctor follows suit and melts against Yaz’s frame pushed against the door. Breathless and spent, Yaz retracts her hand from the teal blue trousers and wipes it on her own pants (they need a wash anyways), then puts her palm flat against the Doctor’s still heaving chest, right over one of her hearts. She smooths the short blonde hair from where she had gripped it in her hand and feels the _thumpthump-thumpthump_ against her palm. The beat is soothing in a way Yaz can’t yet decipher and she is very thankful she didn’t actually die earlier.

They don’t talk about it after that (the Doctor taking a step away and buttoning Yaz’s jeans carefully, then her own trousers).

Yaz almost thinks she made the entire thing up until it happens again after weeks of barely anything more than a strong hand on her wrist, a hand gripping her arm, a hand clapped on her shoulder, and then Yaz is captured by the Skithra, and she’s pretty sure she’s going to die, again.

Like, it’s pretty likely this time, and she’s surprised to find she’s still scared of it. She didn’t think — after all this time running and running and running — she’d be scared when face to face with it again, but she is.

She’s fucking terrified.

And the Doctor shows up, of course. She shows up and does her _thing_ and saves the day at the last possible second and Yaz wants to reach out so badly she leaves half moon shapes in her palms. They follow the Doctor’s plan and it works (of course) and they go home, job finished, mission accomplished.

Except Yaz stays back as Ryan and Graham leave the tardis, telling them she’ll catch up later for tea at Graham’s, and when she turns around the Doctor is much closer than she was before. Hands shaking, she reaches out towards Yaz, and Yaz pulls her close, connecting their lips. It turns frantic fast as the Doctor runs her hands over every inch of Yaz.

It’s not until they part that Yaz realizes the Doctor is _scared._

“I thought I lost you, Yaz. I thought you were going to die.” She rests a careful palm on Yaz’s chest, right over her heart.

Yaz doesn’t think about the heavy thump of her heart (that only gets worse with the Doctor’s touch) or the fact that they’re in the middle of the console room where Ryan and/or Graham could walk in again or that this is an alien being older than she could even imagine standing in front of her with her hand over Yaz’s heart.

They don’t talk about whatever it is they’re _doing_ as Yaz pulls the Doctor close again. They don’t talk as Yaz makes quick work of the fasten on the Doctor’s trousers. And they definitely don’t talk when the Doctor pulls her lips close, tongue running over Yaz’s bottom lip and biting down hard enough to make her knees weak. Sharp metal digs into her bottom (probably pressing buttons that do god knows what) but the uncomfortable cold does nothing to stop the heat that shoots through her body as the Doctor absolutely ravishes her. She thinks she might actually pass out when the Doctor drops to her knees and fumbles with the button on Yaz’s jeans. Her shaking hands can barely get the button open and Yaz slides a comforting hand over the Doctor’s.

“I’m here, Doctor,” she says, keeping eye contact with the heaving woman at her feet. “I’m _here_.”

She nods, messy blonde hair bobbing around her face, and Yaz slowly runs her hand through it. Her fingers catch on dirt and tangles and a fairly large twig that she throws towards the door and the Doctor’s body calms against her palm. Yaz wonders, for the first time but not the last time, how many of them the Doctor has lost, and how many of them just left, unable to travel with her again.

And then, with much less shaky hands and a lot less fumbling, the Doctor makes her come, twice. Once with her (very talented) mouth and another time with her body pushing Yaz against the console and her breath on Yaz’s neck as she whispers things in a language that sounds nothing at all like English.

It isn’t always about Yaz, though, and she knows that. She knows that sometimes the Doctor can’t deal with everything inside, and Yaz helps however she can (a tongue on her clit or a strong arm wrapped around the Doctor’s slender frame). She knows that when the Doctor comes around her fingers buried deep, it isn’t always her the Doctor is thinking about. Sometimes she asks afterwards, quietly and as softly as she can, about the name the Doctor cried out (it changes every so often), and sometimes the Doctor answers. Sometimes her face turns pained and Yaz plants a kiss on the crown on her head and says, “it’s okay.”

She learns things about her, during those quiet times after. She learns a bit about Gallifrey (mostly the technical inner workings of their government, which puts Yaz to sleep almost immediately), a lot about past companions, and a thorough description of how k-9 worked. About some of the adventures she had as a man, whichever man it was ( _they all start to look the same, my face, I mean. All the same white bloke,_ she says, poking at her cheek).

They fight monsters, run for their lives, watch innocent people die over and over again with each new mission, and every time, the Doctor seeks Yaz out afterwards. Grime and dirt and sand and whatever else they had to trek through on the day’s (or three weeks, in one case) journey stuck to their skin and clothes and Yaz doesn’t even care when she remembers the Doctor ate soil hours ago and now has her tongue in Yaz’s mouth.

They learn about the Judoon fugitive, and it doesn’t make complete sense to Yaz, but she is there that night when the Doctor reaches out and grips the lapels of her jacket, holding her close. The Doctor’s eyes are closed, her face relaxed for the first time in weeks, Yaz thinks. Yaz wraps her arms around the Doctor’s waist and pulls her flush, chin resting on her shoulder. The Doctor stays stiff for a moment before relaxing fully into Yaz’s body.

(She can’t imagine the weight this woman carries on her shoulders everyday.)

She rubs shapes on the Doctors back long after her legs start to go numb from how long they stand there holding each other, but Yaz couldn’t care in the slightest. They stay like that for a long time, and then the Doctor pulls back and nods once, avoiding eye contact.

They don’t talk that night. Yaz takes her leave soon after with a reassuring hand on the Doctor’s arm.

And the Doctor, alone in the stratosphere, gives up the Cyberium to save Percy and the Earth.

They’re desperate that night, like they know what’s going to happen (they can’t _possibly_ imagine). Hands rip at clothing and the Doctor pulls so hard at Yaz’s blouse that the buttons pop off and scatter all over the floor.

Yaz pulls away and looks at the floor where she’ll never be able to find all the buttons, then back to the Doctor. “You’re gonna have to pay for that.”

“Deal,” the Doctor says as she makes quick work of pulling the now-ruined blouse over Yaz’s shoulders and pushing her to the edge of the bed. Yaz comes on her tongue in under a minute and as soon as she comes back to her body, the Doctor starts up again, apparently making it her mission to make Yaz come as many times as possible.

She comes again with the Doctor’s fingers buried deep in her and thrusting hard, curling up slightly to reach _that spot_ every single time. Yaz is not taking responsibility for anything that passed her lips at that point.

The Doctor doesn’t stop the thrusting completely, only slowing down and going soft as to not overwhelm Yaz, but she has to push the blonde’s hand away anyways.

“Stop, I can’t again,” Yaz groans, throwing an arm over her eyes and reaching out blindly with one hand. She feels soft fabric and realizes the Doctor is still fully clothed, and she knows she has to rectify that immediately. After she catches her breath and her legs stop shaking.

When she finally removes her arm from her eyes, she sees the Doctor sitting stiffly on the edge of the bed, hands clasped together in her lap. Yaz sits up and moves closer to her, knocking their knees together (Yaz’s very bare legs to the Doctor’s teal trousers). The woman sitting next to her seems so small that Yaz genuinely can’t imagine her being nearly as old as she claims. She holds her hand out slowly, like any sudden movement will make the blonde bolt, and touches the tips of her fingers to the inside of the Doctor’s wrist. It’s barely a touch but it’s comforting nonetheless, and the Doctor sucks in a deep, shaky breath. Yaz keeps her fingers there for a long while after that.

And then, because there is nothing else they can do, they go to the future to stop the Cybermen.

The ringing is loud. Her side aches from where she had thrown herself behind the satellite disk, and her wrist throbs with every hand movement. She figures she’s probably a bit lucky a little pain and some ear ringing is all she got from the drones.

The drones fly off and Yaz watches them retreat, coming out of her cover spot and towards the Doctor who stands over the fallen human.

Graham speaks first. “The systems didn’t stop them, Doc.”

Her fist clenches around the sonic in her hand. She doesn’t turn from where she stands, eyes fixed on the fallen human. “I know.”

“Destroyed everything we brought with us,” Yaz adds, breathless.

“I know,” the Doctor repeats. Yaz watches her back stiffen and jaw clench. It’s like stoking a fire, she thinks. A wildfire.

“We haven’t got anything else to defend ourselves or them,” Ryan says.

She whips around, face angry as she yells, “I know!” The silent tension is palpable and only broken by a loud metallic groaning sound coming from the distance. The Doctor breaks out of the statue hardness form she had been taking and steps closer to them, tone serious and commanding. “Listen to me, do not argue. Go with the humans, help them - get them out of here. You won’t make it back to the tardis alive,” she looks at each of them in turn. “Make sure you’re with them.”

“What about you?” Ryan asks.

“I’ll hold them off.”

“How you gonna do that?” Graham asks dubiously.

“This isn’t a discussion,” she snaps, her voice and gaze set firm on the man.

Yaz furrows her brow because, _no_ , this is not happening. “We’re not just gonna leave you.” And okay, she basically yells it, not able to keep the pure fear out of her voice at the implications of leaving the Doctor here _alone._ No way in hell.

The Doctor holds Yaz by the arms, eyes pleading but firm. “ _Yes_ , you are. You have to,” she says and looks to the others, not letting her firm grip on Yaz’s arm waver. “all of you. No questions.” And then looks back to Yaz. She feels her resolve melt at her feet when she looks into the Doctor’s eyes. Anger, she expects, but not the panic hiding underneath. The Doctor is genuinely scared (again).

(Yaz isn’t sure there’s a time when she’s _not_ scared, really.)

“I’ve been so reckless with you, I’m so sorry,” she says, hands sliding down to briefly hold onto Yaz’s fingers before letting go completely.

“What are you talking about?” Yaz asks, confused.

“You’re _human._ If they capture you, they’ll convert you.”

The implications of the words sink in for the first time and the fam looks at each other uneasily as the metallic groan sounds behind them again.

“Get safe, _now,”_ the Doctor says. Yaz grabs for her arm before she can run away and pulls her close, hands holding her cheeks as she presses their lips together. The Doctor’s tense body relaxes (however briefly) under Yaz’s touch. Yaz presses another quick kiss to the Doctor’s lips and pulls away, resting their foreheads together.

“I’ll come find you, I promise,” the Doctor says.

“I know,” Yaz replies, pressing one last kiss to her always chapped lips before pulling away completely and following the boys. She doesn’t look back at the Doctor standing there, sonic in her hand and the weight of however many millennia hanging off her back. She doesn’t watch as the Doctor straightens her spine, chin jutting up defiantly and turning on her heel, walking the opposite way from the humans. And she doesn’t see when she makes herself bait, running to keep the Cybermen’s attention.

* * *

It doesn’t work.

The Cybermen take off after the humans and they get separated from Ryan. He was literally _right behind them_ and then he wasn’t and they were in the ship and the doors were closing and they wouldn’t let Yaz or Graham off, and then they were leaving him behind on a planet where if they capture you they turn you into a terrible monster. Yaz prays for what feels like the first time in weeks (bad, she knows) that the Doctor will find Ryan, she _has_ to. If Yaz has nothing else, she has hope (in the Doctor, in the universe, in the general goodness of the world? Unclear).

They get stranded in the middle of a Cyberwar battleground and don’t lose hope (mostly, sort of). They get on a cyber ship and realize the Cybermen are coming to their location and don’t lose hope. Yaz hears the Doctor’s voice and it just reaffirms her (probably very reckless) trust in the Doctor.

They get off the ship, save Ryan and Ko Sharmus and Ethan from being ‘upgraded’, and when the portal appears in front of them, Yaz doesn’t hesitate to step through (she’s going to find the Doctor if it’s the last thing she ever does).

And it’s not — the last thing she ever does, I mean. They find the Doctor crumpled in a heap on the floor of a large ornate room among the ruins of the building and Yaz reaches forward with shaking hands, checking for a pulse on her wrist and wanting to run her hands over every inch of her, check for wounds inside and out. The Doctor opens her eyes and slowly curls two fingers around Yaz’s hand and says, “my fam,” before slowly pulling herself up to her feet.

The Doctor kisses her, in front of all the humans. Yaz is taken by surprise but reciprocates immediately, pulling her in by the front of her jacket. She runs a tongue over chapped lips and Graham clears his throat loud behind them and like a light that finally blinks on in the Doctors mind, she finally pulls back, still holding the back of Yaz’s neck in one hand and the front of her jacket in the other.

“Right, Cybermen,” she says and shakes her head like she’s clearing fog. “Right! Cybermen! Got it, this way fam.”

They blow up the troop container (well, the other humans do) and the Doctor finds the miniaturized Cyberman and death particle. The bombs go off quicker than expected and Yaz is being shoved into a tardis (apparently this was the default? She much better preferred the Doctor’s tardis, instead). The Doctor asks Ko Sharmus about explosives and Yaz follows the exchange with her eyes, her brain not quite catching up to the turn of events.

“What are you thinkin’, Doc?” Graham asks behind her.

The Doctor looks down at the bomb in her hand and back up to the fam. “One option left.” She holds up the miniaturized Cyberman and gives a watery smile and it suddenly clicks into place, the Cyberman and the death particle and the bomb and the Master and Yaz wants to cover the Doctor’s mouth before she can say the next part. “I have to use the death particle on Gallifrey. On my _home_. On the Master, and his new breed of Cybermen.”

“Are you sure you wanna do that?” Ryan asks hesitantly.

The Doctor looks so _tired_ when she looks up at Ryan. “I’m sure I _don’t_ wanna do that but there’s no alternative. If the Master and the Cybermen get off this planet, they’ll be unstoppable. I started this, with Shelley and the Cyberium, and now I need to finish it. Alone.”

“What?” Yaz all but yells.

The Doctor ignores her. “The tardis will take you back to Earth — all of you.”

“What about you? If you detonate that thing, you’ll die too,” Ryan points out.

“That’s the way it has to be. And I will do that in a heartbeat for this universe. For you.“ She looks to Yaz, then to the rest of them. “My fam.” She turns on her heel and starts to walk away and Yaz can’t let this happen — there’s _no_ way.

She reaches out and grabs the Doctor’s wrist, stopping her. “We’re not letting you go, you’re not doing this!” She really doesn’t mean to let the panic in her voice seep through but it does nonetheless and she hears it (knows the Doctor hears it).

The Doctor forcefully shakes off her grip. “Get off me, Yaz!” she snaps, then turns to her. Yaz feels the fight leave her body immediately at the Doctor’s watery eyes threatening to spill over. “ _Please,_ ” she begs, voice thick. Yaz opens her mouth, wanting to say something — _anything_ — but the only thing she can think of is, “I’m sorry.”

The Doctor smiles sadly and laces their fingers together, bringing her knuckles to her lips. “Me too,” she says, cupping Yaz’s cheek in one palm and pressing chapped lips to her own. When they part she turns to the rest of the fam (extended fam?) and says, “live great lives.” before walking out of the tardis and towards her certain demise.

* * *

The next time it happens, her hair is longer and Yaz is older and they kiss with the same fervor, hard enough that Yaz thinks her lips might bruise, but she doesn’t care in the slightest. She pulls at the torn clothing the Doctor arrived in — fought her way out of prison in — and runs her hands over every single inch of skin and they both don’t mind how hard they clutch at each other (the idea that another inch apart could mean gone forever, again).

Yaz likes the long hair and the Doctor likes the laugh lines around Yaz’s mouth and they both remind themselves how much they like each other.


End file.
